**IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS**
We do not offer legal advice at our support group meetings. Legal advice can only be obtained from a lawyer. We do not have a lawyer in attendance at our support group meetings. Our free support group meetings are chaired by a senior certified law clerk who is also a divorced father and an adult child of divorce. Our Support Group meetings are a place to share and exchange personal experience and knowledge about the process of separation and divorce. Discussions at our meetings are of a supportive nature so that fathers can gain a clearer understanding of separation/divorce from the perspective of fathers who have had success in Family Court. Meeting dates are subject to change.

**IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS**
We do not offer legal advice at our support group meetings. Legal advice can only be obtained from a lawyer. We do not have a lawyer in attendance at our support group meetings. Our free support group meetings are chaired by a senior certified law clerk who is also a divorced father and an adult child of divorce. Our Support Group meetings are a place to share and exchange personal experience and knowledge about the process of separation and divorce. Discussions at our meetings are of a supportive nature so that fathers can gain a clearer understanding of separation/divorce from the perspective of fathers who have had success in Family Court. Meeting dates are subject to change.

DISCLAIMER

All information, documents, links, resources on this website and the information discussed at our Q&A support group meetings DOES NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE. If you wish legal advice please consult with a lawyer. The information on this website is simply one possible starting point for your 'strategic consideration'.

DISCLAIMER

All information, documents, links, resources on this website and the information discussed at our Q&A support group meetings DOES NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE. If you wish legal advice please consult with a lawyer. The information on this website is simply one possible starting point for your 'strategic consideration'.

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Ontario Superior Court of Justice - Family Court

Layperson Guides to procedure in the
Ontario Superior Court of Justice - Family Court

The following information is a short summary of the more detailed adobe acrobat. pdf documents. They explain in general layperson terms, the procedure in the Superior Court of Justice - Family Court. It is not legal advice and you cannot rely upon it as such. You should always consult with a lawyer. If you cannot afford a lawyer, you should make application to legal aid and/or seek legal advice from duty counsel at your local Family Court.

NOTE: Pdf 01. Ontario Family Court Self-Help Consolidated Guide Consolidated below has all of the padf's together in one document. EXCEPT for 09b. Motions To Change a Court Order, which needs to be downloaded separately to have a complete set of the pdf guides on this page.

This short summary explains in general-layperson terms, the procedure in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice - Family Court. More detailed information is available and can be downloaded in adobe acrobat .pdf documents, at the bottom of the page.

In the Ontario Superior Court of Justice - Family Court most proceedings begin with an APPLICATION, where a party (meaning either a man/father or a woman/mother) initiates Family Court proceedings. The person initiating the Court proceeding is known as the APPLICANT.

The APPLICATION contains CLAIMS by the APPLICANT. These CLAIMS are what the APPLICANT wants the Family Court to order the other party to do.

Generally, once you have been SERVED (given the Court Documents) you have 30 DAYS under the FAMILY LAW RULES to formally respond (subject to some exceptions) in what is known as an ANSWER.

The party who must ANSWER is known as the RESPONDENT.

The RESPONDENT provides an ANSWER to the APPLICATION by either agreeing to the orders requested by the APPLICANT, or disputing them.

The RESPONDENT then may also make CLAIMS of their own, which the APPLICANT must answer in a REPLY.

If the APPLICATION contains a claim for either CHILD or SPOUSAL SUPPORT, then the ANSWER must have an accompanying FINANCIAL STATEMENT served with the APPLICATION.

An APPLICATION with a CHILD SUPPORT claim DOES NOT have to be accompanied by a FINANCIAL STATEMENT if the only claim is the table amount under the CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES. If there is a claim for EXTRAORDINARY EXPENSES or you make a STANDARD OF LIVING TEST CLAIM, then the other party must serve you a FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Also, if there is CLAIM for SPOUSAL SUPPORT, you must be served a FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

NOTE - CUSTODY & ACCESS CLAIMS: If there is a claim for custody and/or access, you must also serve and file a form 35.1 - AFFIDAVIT FOR CUSTODY & ACCESS. Please see Guide 03b. AFFIDAVIT FOR CUSTODY & ACCESS - Form 35.1 below for details.

NOTE - PROPERTY CLAIMS : Property cannot be claimed in the Ontario Court of Justice. Property matters can only be heard in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

The party that served you, likely your wife or common-law partner then must prove to the Family Court that she has in fact SERVED you.

This PROOF of SERVICE is known as an AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE.

The AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE is a document that tells the Court that the party swears that the documents were served upon the other party. It is sworn written testimony. It is sworn either by the Clerk of the Court, a lawyer, or other commissioner of oaths, authorized by the Attorney General of Ontario to notarize Family Court documents.

Every document SERVED by a party upon the other party, must have an accompanying AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE proving that the other party was in fact given a copy of the documents. There are specific rules related to serving Court documents under the Family Law Rules which you must review in order for service to be effective and accepted by the Court. Please review Rule 6 - Service of the Family Law Rules for details and the Government Self Help Guides for Family Court for examples.

After the APPLICATION, ANSWER and REPLY have been SERVED, the parties have their FIRST COURT DATE to verify that in fact all documents have been served on the parties and that the documents have also been filed with the Court.

The First Appearance Clerk verifies this at the FIRST COURT DATE, and either schedules timelines to finish service of documents, and schedules the first CASE CONFERENCE DATE.

A CASE CONFERENCE BRIEF must then be prepared and exchanged as per the timelines in the FAMILY LAW RULES (APPLICANT within seven days and RESPONDENT within four days of the CASE CONFERNCE, per the FAMILY LAW RULES).

By 2 PM, two days before the CASE CONFERENCE, the parties must confirm the date with each other and file a CONFIRMATION with the Family Court. Most Family Courts have a special fax number for transmitting the CONFIRMATION FORM.

At the CASE CONFERENCE, the Judge will attempt to facilitate a settlement discussion, and have the parties go outside of the Court to see if they can come up with an agreement to either settle all, or part of the COURT CASE.

Any agreement to settle is done in writing. This is known as either TEMPORARY or FINAL MINUTES OF SETTLEMENT, depending on whether part or the entire matter is settled.

The MINUTES OF SETTLEMENT then become a JUDGE'S ENDORSEMENT, this is what the Judge writes down as his/her ORDER.

The JUDGE'S ENDORSEMENT, is then written up into a DRAFT COURT ORDER. If the parties have lawyers, the DRAFT COURT ORDER is prepared by one of the lawyers. The other lawyer, then must approve the DRAFT COURT ORDER as to its form (the way its drafted - who was there, is it a temporary or final order) and content (what it actually says, who will do what, when they will do it, etc.).

Once approvd by the other lawyer, the DRAFT COURT ORDER then goes back to the Family Court, where it is compared by either the Judge or a Clerk of the Court against the ENDORSEMENT.

If the DRAFT COURT ORDER and ENDORSEMENT match and the form is technically correct, the ORDER is APPROVED and then is ISSUED under a COURT SEAL.

The COURT ORDER is now ENFORCEABLE, within the limits proscribed by law.

NOTE: DIVORCE ( Which is initiated by APPLICATION) can only be heard in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

There are three kinds of DIVORCE APPLICATIONS

1. SIMPLE APPLICATION - An uncontested divorce initiated by either the husband or wife, where there will be no property, custody/access or support claims.

2. GENERAL APPLICATIONA contested divorce initiated by either the husband or wife, where there are property, custody/access or support claims being made.

3. JOINT APPLICATION - An uncontested divorce initiated by the husband and wife together, where there will be no property, custody/access or support claims.

The pdf documents BELOW provide a layperson-explanation of the Family Court process in much greater detail.

One real problem in Domestic Violence is our refusal as a society to recognize that all violence is wrong and should be recognized as such. Hence I believe our curent discussion of domestic Violence is immature at best.

It's about time Judge's told it like it really is, and held parents to account. If only more Judges would let it be known that they ae looking for the mature parent...Great story here...we need to see more Judges do things like this that instruct parents that their lawyers encouraging them to fight is not the way to go.

There is no reason to be losing so badly when you are a divorced dad in Family Court... except that you don't have the right ideas, tools nor skills. BUT....IF… you can listen, follow a plan and are “coach-able”, we can DEFINITELY help you to improve the situation thi Sunday January 13th, 2008 on our teleseminar / webcast at DivorcedDadWeekly.com

Waging Peace is the # 1 Negotiation / Positioning tool, strategy, tactic and systematic approach we recommend for creating multiple win/win solutions when you are a divorced dad in Family Court, facing custody, access, child visitation and child support issues. Waging Peace means putting aside blame, anger, recrimination, fault finding, revenge and all other negative emotions and fully considering the implications of every choice you make and how it will affect your child of divorce.

History of Fathers Resources International, its activities and the autobiography of its founder, Danny Guspie. Part one - Prologue: The boy becomes the man: A childhood hero points the way and provides the inspiration.

Note the following - the industrialization of child support as an adjunct to "The Divorce Industry"

One thousand seven hundred employees now work full-time in Friend of the Court offices as referees, counselors, clerks, and support staff in all 83 Michigan counties. In addition, many employees of the criminal justice system devote a major portion of their workday to this last vestige of debtor's prison.

So it is no surprise that there was consternation in Lansing over a federal plan that cut nearly a quarter billion dollars in Michigan subsidies for child-support enforcement. But one state legislator, Rep. Leslie Mortimer, R-Horton, has introduced a bill that could reduce the need for devoting so many resources to child support enforcement.

The problem we see daily is the "Ghost figures" that Ontario uses for its claim that there is 3 Billion dollars in unpaid child support.

Hogwash - 2 Billion of it is nothing but the meter ticking on matters that never return to Court for a termination order because dad can't afford a lawyer to get his Court order changed. Then he faces licence suspensions and possible jail time.

In the Alberta case Henry and Henry which is currently before the Canada's Supreme Court, a dissenting Judge nailed it perfectly - If child support should automatically go up with an increase of income, fairness dictates the reverse should also happen - Child support should go down when income decreases.

But then what would everybody at Child Support Enforcement do for a real job?

“The Beatles: An Authorized Biography” by Hunter Davies spoke to me like no other book I’d ever read before. I was a well read kid at that point, having read everything I could get my hands on from the moment I could read which would be somewhere around age four when my mother taught me the alphabet with a set of plastic letters that had magnets and a board to move them around on…

The Book: A wondrous tale happy, sad and true (or at least so I believed at that age…) that I related to. Mainly because of John Lennon’s family history, there was something very familiar and haunting about it, despite many things that were not held in common between our respective families. It was his quintessential Rock n’ Roll vocal – he seemed like the real deal (at a time when my family seemed like a charade…). I could not only hear his pain, but I could feel it – it gave expression to my own.

So began a love affair of a different sort, one of a young boy who’d found a kindred spirit, who wanted to know why he’d been so deeply affected by this story. It was not to be the first or the last time John Lennon would profoundly shape my development and independence in the same way Elvis Presley did for Lennon at age 15…

Arguably, Lennon’s music and the Beatles were the most influential aspect of my young life, helping me to feel hope, happiness and providing a language to articulate express and begin creating my own identity during my family crisis and resulting divorce. I always knew my parents were troubled from age 1 onwards. But at age 9 I became extremely cognizant that the end of my family was nigh.

John gave me an outlet. A very healthy one. He taught me how to transform pain into art. Music has always been my greatest outlet to expression. But John taught me how to scream. Really scream in a Rock n’ Roll way - Once I heard his first solo album when I was 12. I began my own form of primal therapy. When I heard him sing “Mother” I finally felt I wasn’t the only one who felt the same pain over a family that had large problems.

I absorbed Rock n’ Roll totally. It gave me a reason to get up everyday. Even today Little Richard’s “Wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom…gets me “rockin’” I’m sure anyone who hears me play today, and who has heard my songs can easily see that John Lennon and Keith Richards made a huge and everlasting impression on me musically.

So I began playing drums and songwriting, and emulating John. Within 12 months my parents separated and ultimately divorced and I became a latch key kid, living with dad first then Mom, then on my own. So began my lifelong journey with divorce - But before I left home, I became a full fledged drop out. Spare was my favorite class in High School (with “high” being the operative word….)

At age 14 I was playing guitar, hooky on a daily basis, had done an enormous amount of drugs of all sorts and on weekends go to watch the film Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter” - 35 times to be exact at CineCity. I was also fanatical film watcher at the “Original 99 cent Roxy Theatre” long before the Rocky Horror Picture Show destroyed and closed that theatre down for good. It was a good place to hang and get high with minimal fuss and forget the mess my life was because of my own unhappiness with my family.

A child-support bill tied to drivers' licenses fails to pass the Senate in Utah - Associated Press: Utah Senators had concerns about revoking the driving privileges of those not paying child support because they weren't being allowed to see their children.

A record number of Ulster Ireland couples are splitting up - leaving children so traumatized they need psychiatric treatment - it emerged today. A family expert said she feared divorce levels here had reached epidemic proportions.

Caring for a child for between 52 and 126 nights each year will reduce the amount owed by 24 per cent, while those with custody for more than 176 nights will cut their maintenance bills by half. The new formula also recognises for the first time that the cost of raising children increases as they get older.

Open letter from Danny Guspie to the Governments of Canada: "ISN'T CHILD SUPPORT FOR THE CHILD?" I was inspired to ask yet again for an accounting of where the increased tax revenue dollars go since the implementation of the Child Support Guidelines in 1997.
Heidi and I met with the Department of Finance who could not give us these answers 9 years ago. Hopefully they've had time to do the books ;-)

Yes, say two University of Virginia sociologists who found that married women are happiest with a sensitive guy who earns most of the family's money. Women are also willing to take on more housework if they feel their husbands pay attention to them, and they feel the arrangement is "fair," if not equal.

The day is soon coming where we will hit critical mass - Change will come about because even the famous, rich and powerful who have been burned so badly in Family Court will make it their life's work to make change possible.

I really like that he says: "...you've got to keep in mind the other party is still the co-parent of your child."